Mars Global Surveyor Completes Over 25,000 Orbits And Continues To Rewrite The History Books On Mars
Lockheed Martin

The venerable Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) spacecraft, built by Lockheed Martin, completed its 25,000th orbit around Mars recently and is still going strong. Built by Lockheed Martin Space Systems in partnership with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for NASA’s Mars exploration program, MGS achieved this major milestone May 26, demonstrating its yeoman’s performance as the “big brother” of orbiters circling Mars and mapping the planet’s surface since 1997, as no other Mars exploration spacecraft has done before. The Mars Global Surveyor is approaching the beginning of its eighth year of mission operations in orbit around Mars and continues its record of collecting more information about the red planet than all previous missions combined.